Dive Clubs: Why Aren't There More? Where Did They All Go?

[2airishuman]

After an extensive search, I found that there's a non-profit dive club that's been operating for around 40 years that is about 25 miles from my house. It's in a rural area where there has never, as far as I know, been a dive shop.

The club owns a small commercial building. Part of it is leased to another nonprofit to cover taxes and building maintenance. The rest is divided into a classroom/meeting area and an equipment area. The equipment area has storage racks, a large 4500 PSI compressor (guessing about 20 scfm) and storage bank, and a repair/VIP bench.

Club members get $1 air fills, free VIPs, free tank and equipment storage, courtesy loans of other member's tanks when needed at no charge, free pool time, and involvement in dive trips and other club events. Membership dues are $20 a year.

The catch? Well, everything happens on the dive club's schedule. They do air fills one night a week, VIPs only in February and March. And they encourage people to donate their time, talent, and knowledge.

They offer an OWD class once a year in cooperation with an instructor who is affiliated with the club.

I'm surprised there aren't more of these around. The economics of running a dive shop in most parts of the country don't make much sense -- they're a labor of love for the people who own them in most cases, I think, except for a few larger shops with a nationwide clientele and shops in areas that are dive destinations.

 

[Phil_C]

I love the "dive club" setup, of course in the UK we have BSAC, which is very much a club based system. I have three clubs within a few miles of me, so I belong to all of them. All have their own boats/rhibs, two have they own compressors, the biggest club has full trimix/nitrox capability.

Gas fills are free, unless you want nitro or trimix when oxygen an helium are charged per litre at cost.

Boat dives are at cost, and they provide a ready source of training, courses and dives buddies, again all of which are provided at cost.

I also belong to a Turkish dive club where I work. Very similar but a little more commercial, they have two boats, compressor, but no nitrox, they dive every Saturday and Sunday, and many weekdays in the summer.

Because I teach and guide for them I don't pay for air or boat dives, but equally I don't get paid for doing it, but that's fine by me.

I guess it is down to what people want. Club diving does involve a lot more mucking in, helping out and doing it for yourself, there is no turn up and everything is done for you and so on, but it is the way I prefer to dive.

Phil

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Our dive clubs are more social in nature ... we get together and dive, but there are no such things as club boats or fill stations. We do sometimes get special rates from local shops and dive charters, but that's more in the nature of prizes to raffle off at club events.

But we do dive a lot. I belong to two dive clubs locally, and between them there are pretty much multiple diving events happening every week-end. And usually someone's organizing a trip somewhere, be it fairly local (like Vancouver Island) or to someplace far away (like the Red Sea or Raja Ampat, to name a couple recent ones).

It's a great way to stay active ... and to connect with other active divers.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Wookie]

There are a number of clubs that charter with me. Some are formal local clubs, some are nationwide cyber clubs that get together and dive. They use their buying power to reduce the costs to the participants. I don't know of a single one that owns a boat or a compressor. I'd consider that a co-op, but semantics, eh?

 

[socaljohn]

This sounds great to me, wonder what they do about liability for fills and club boat use in our litigious society. I belong to a couple clubs that are really just FB meet up groups. I can almost always find a dive unless like lately conditions crappy. Did do a nice oil rig dive couple wks ago that was posted to the group.

 

[boulderjohn]

Once when I was in Cozumel I did some diving with members of a dive club from California, and we talked about this topic. They used to be associated with a specific dive shop, but the dive shop cut any official ties with them. Why? Liability. They were afraid of being part of a lawsuit because of something someone in the dive club did over which they had no control. If you know about the "Drifting Dan" lawsuit, you will know what I mean.

In our area, we tried having something of a club or co-op for nitrox and trimix fills, but it never happened. Once again, the main problem was liability fears. If a tank explodes while someone is filling it on the compressor in your garage, just how far will that lawsuit go? Who is responsible for the maintenance of the compressor, cleaning the tanks, etc.? All of that can be worked out, I suppose, but we didn't.

About 10 years ago I talked to the dive shop for which I worked and tried to work up the idea of forming a club that was more of a social club, one that would try to arrange trips together, etc. I thought it would be great if they could decide to have a group go to a specific place at a specific time and then have the shop make all the arrangements, a win-win for everyone. The shop did not like the idea at all. They arrange trips years in advance, and they make a schedule. Then they try to get people to sign up for those trips. Sometimes they don't get enough people to make the trip worth while, and they end up losing money on the trip. They said that every member of the club who would be part of a club-planned trip would have been part of one of those scheduled trips if it were not for the club, so there was no benefit to them for the club trip. There was also considerable risk, since that would mean fewer people on the scheduled trips and more possibilities of money-losing ventures.

 

[Littlerayray]

My club will set you up with a dive buddy and they do multiple charters during the week as well as shore dives they also have a pig roast and a formal christmas party here is their website
www.seawayvalleydivers.com
We love cold water diving

 

[sheeper]

My club (Vero Beach Scuba Club - Home) is a social club and we dive a lot. We work with a number of shops and boats to get special pricing, discounts and club only trips for our members. We are only about 4 years old but growing steadily. Come on and dive with us!

 

[Phil_C]

This sounds great to me, wonder what they do about liability for fills and club boat use in our litigious society. I belong to a couple clubs that are really just FB meet up groups. I can almost always find a dive unless like lately conditions crappy. Did do a nice oil rig dive couple wks ago that was posted to the group.

BSAC provide members with third party liability insurance for club dives and activities, and all the clubs I belong to also have separate club insurance that covers club activities, the compressors, boats and so on, both storage and use. Filter maintenance, changing, servicing and so on is all recorded, and we get the tanks and banks inspected according to the health and safety executive recommendations. Because we are a formal club, and non-profit making we are not subject to commercial rules and requirements.

Phil.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I started a club in Norcal called the North Coast Divers. The whole idea in the beginning was to be just a scheduling club that planned a beach dive somewhere on the coast every first Saturday of the month, with no dues or fees. The participants were on their own, they just knew where to go that day where there would be other divers and they could find a buddy. It was for new divers, or divers new to the area that wanted an introduction to local diving.
The club grew, but being internet based it also drew some pretty strange personalities that otherwise had difficulty finding buddies because of their personality disorders. It descended into chaos at some of the functions with some opposing mindsets. The club eventually broke down to just a few people. It's still active as far as I know, but most original people bailed including me. The problem was being it was free with no dues or fees also kind of meant it was free and open for anyone to join in, and unfortunately a few toxic people showed up as well ruining it for everyone else.
My advice is to be very carefull what you plan on the internet because you never know who'll show up.